Bushwacking

When we moved into our house in November 2008, there was a lot of work to be done. One thing we noticed immediately, and didn't love, was the huge shrub/bush in front of our house under our big living room window.

This bush was HUGE, bigger than a king sized bed!

For the last 3 years, I have trimmed it back, and tried to keep it under control. It seems to have a mind of it's own though, and it tried to take over the yard.

In the above picture, you can see the grass stopped growing about 3 feet under the front edge of the bush.

Finally, last weekend, we had enough of the bush and we decided to remove it.

As Tim began to cut it out, we realized it is actually 3 bushes, but they grew so much it just looked like one big bush.

After Tim cut the bush out, he had to dig up the roots. They were HUGE roots:

It took him about 2 hours to do all the cutting and digging.

I'm so glad this bush is gone! FINALLY!!

Here is our bush loaded into the back of the truck:

Tim drove the truck into the back yard and unloaded it into our burn pile. We will get a burn permit sometime in the next month and burn it. Tim said this bush is too wet to burn right now.

The area where Tim removed the bush was a mess of roots and rocks. Apparently, whoever planted the bushes many years ago had used rocks to cover the dirt around the bushes.

I spent a couple of afternoons out there sifting through the dirt to get the rocks out and to get the rest of the roots cut out.  I used a bucket with a piece of chicken wire over the top of it to sift the bigger rocks out of the dirt. I put the sifted dirt on tarps. I went down about 6 inches through the whole bed, from the steps to the concrete drain thingie. It was taking FOREVER, so Allen came over and helped me finish it up on Saturday.

I wanted to get the area ready for planting in the spring.

I'm not quite sure how we plan to fill the empty space in front of the house but we will definitely plant something there in the spring. I'm still undecided about whether I would like a few smaller (more manageable) bushes, or maybe just a flowerbed. I'm glad I have several months to figure it out.

Here are the before/after pics:

BEFORE

AFTER

Much better!

The whole house will get a facelift in the spring. We plan to paint the house and do some other work on the outside in front. I CAN'T WAIT!!